Why did a Mexican court find Yahoo liable for $2.7 billion in a lawsuit filed by a former business partner?
It's still far from clear what's going on, which is ticking Wall Street off. Yahoo's only comment is to call the lawsuit meritless and say it will appeal the court's decision. But the Latin America Startup Blog has shed a bit of light.
Yahoo and a business called Worldwide Directories set out to create print and online business directories for parts of Mexico, competing with Telmex, the local-phone monopoly operator in Mexico.
They apparently managed to come out with at least one printed edition in 2004.
Jose Luis Cruz, writing on Pelenga, a Mexican tech blog, claims that Yahoo unilaterally terminated the contract. (It's not clear where he got that information, and we have yet to see the text of the original lawsuit or the full judgment. Yahoo hasn't commented beyond acknowledging the judgment against it.)
Cruz posted a photo of the printed telephone directory, and reports that many of the listed numbers still work. The partners planned on an original print run of 800,000 copies, according to Noticias Dot, a Mexican news site.
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